ok I am so excited and can not parse information correctly right now but does this mean that rick and morty is going to be new tomorrow?! please say that that is what this means pleeeeaaaaaaaaaase.posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 2:55 PM on March 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I LOVE Rick & Morty. It's one of those shows, like Adventure Time, that I feel the need to, like, evangelize.

I loved it when Rick actually called Morty out on the whole love-potion-being-basically-a-roofie thing and how creepy it is. That was AWESOME, and SO SO true.posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 2:56 PM on March 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

Does it get less mean/cruel after the pilot? Because the pilot is an alcoholic abusing his grandson for 20 consecutive minutes.

(seriously, CN, between this and Steven Universe, your scheduling is really weird. Two really long hiatuses in a row? When the show only had released a few episodes? Like... that's daft.)posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 2:56 PM on March 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

that episode when morty and rick go to the other dimension and morty realizes what this really means as he walks through the door is why i love this show. it went from "liking very much" to " love love" right after that ep.posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 2:57 PM on March 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

NDWRIGHT: Yeah -- it really does. The pilot is the weakest ep. Check out "Lawnmower Dog", "M. Night Shaym-aliens!" or "Meeseeks & Destroy". Those are much, much better.posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 2:57 PM on March 9, 2014

i love morty and i hope morty loves me
i want to wrap my arms around him and feel him inside of me

hey yo you gotta be aware, aware of all the flu up in the air UH
gonna get a shot, make the flu go away
flu hating rapper just rapping away uhn uhn yeahposted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I've been evangelistically showing this to as many of my friends as will watch it, and have gone through several impromptu marathons since it only takes about as long as watching a typical movie to power through the 6 episodes so far.

The only complaint i've really heard from someone is that it gets really crass at times. Like the "you can put your fingers anywhere you want ;)" thing in the anatomy park episode. It definitely goes to places i haven't really seen other AS shows or southpark go in recent memory. That, and the belching.

Seriously what the fuck is with the belching.

The one thing i will say is that the pilot is the weakest episode of the show. If that didn't hook you, watch another episode. I know that's something that's typical of a lot of shows, but other than the whole "Shoot them, they're robots" "OH GOD THEY'RE NOT ROBOTS" "Whatever morty, they're bureaucrats, they don't have souls!" exchange that episode just doesn't hold up against the later ones.

Overall though, i hope this gets picked up and becomes a regular AS show and gets a ton of seasons and stuff like adventure time did, and doesn't just get unjustly kicked off like flapjack(still bitter. still miss that show.)posted by emptythought at 3:07 PM on March 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Rick Potion #9 was brutal. It raised one big question for me: "How many times has Rick done this before? How many devastated worlds has he just walked out on?".

It's also kind of disturbing how quickly Jerry started straight up caving skulls in with a crowbar in that episode. There's a scene with him plowing through a crowd of 'Cronenbergs' in his car, and he has this expression of absolute glee on his face. It may just be a trope, but I like the idea that this nebbishy father is actually meant for a life of clubbing things to death in a wasteland.posted by Grimgrin at 3:16 PM on March 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't know how I really feel about this show. I pretty much stopped watching Robot Chicken when it started to be all childhood-toys-kill-each-other all the time. Rick and Morty pushes some of those same buttons for me. That said "Meseeks and Destroy" is as dark as any of the new-style shows, but still manages to be funny. I think it's walking a razor's edge.

In the newest crop of animated shows, where, let's face it, technological advances and improvements in communication and turnaround mean that you can animate a lot more for a lot less, it falls on the shows to be as good as they can be, given the premise and approach.

And seriously, all shows on television that are in some way comedic non-linear episodic series, they're more than welcome to shake the show up entirely to keep the audience happy and to keep things interesting. One that comes to mind would be American Dad where they dropped the political humor in favor of allowing Roger the Alien's dress-up to provide for an endless amount of characters that invade the space. Some American Dad episodes are so far out there that they hang the lantern with Klaus getting a single line like "aaaaand here's my line for the week." I think that's all fine.

Rick and Morty is jam-packed with a bunch of interesting tangents and references in science fiction dystopias and isn't afraid to destroy the episode's universe to get a laugh. They also have overlays and essentially creepy sex references colliding with slapstick. It is all of a thing. When it works, it will really work for the audience who buys in, but it will absolutely tank if it loses that audience because there's nobody to replace it.

Summary: They've set a very high watermark in terms of both crudeness and intelligent philosophy and I call it even-odds they can keep it at that level beyond a single season without seriously shaking up the premise.

One of the many things I like about Rick and Morty is that it is a show that rewards paying careful attention. So, for example (spoiler alert) in "M. Night Shaym-Aliens," Rick basically tells us at the very beginning of the episode that he knows Morty is a simulation.

Even better, here's a great blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from "Meeseeks and Destroy":

Girl 1 on TV: I just had sex with Billy
Girl 2: but you're already pregnant
Girl 1: what's the worst that could happen?
Announcer: We interrupt "Pregnant Baby" to bring you this breaking newsposted by dhens at 4:07 PM on March 9, 2014 [7 favorites]

Also, Rick's last name is Sanchez. Heh.posted by dhens at 4:16 PM on March 9, 2014

Ah! I've been wondering what happened to the House of Cosbys guy. That show was amazing.posted by grumpybear69 at 4:32 PM on March 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

As for how many dimensions he's just walked out on, the answer is infinite. There's an infinite number where he saves everyone, and an infinite number he's walked away.posted by varion at 4:37 PM on March 9, 2014

This is Principal Vagina. No relation.

I forgot about this one, but it's worth bringing up. This is a great example of the ??? stuff the show does. It's not really funny, it's just left field in a really middle school humor way.

I know someone who pretty much walked out on the show after the first episode, and that line was one of their reasons why. And it was somebody who usually really likes dumb stoner humor.

ob1quixote, that sort of thing is really the razors edge you brought up IMO. It would be VERY easy for it to just fall in to a pit of well, just dumbass stuff like that which isn't really funny.posted by emptythought at 4:41 PM on March 9, 2014

You see Morty *Braaaap!* There's this thing called Metafilter Morty! And all these people post stuff to it Morty. They, they, they post stuff to it to *Brrrraaaaap!* to to to get 'Favorites', which are just like 'likes' on Facebook. You know what 'like' is Morty? YOU KNOW WHAT A LIKE IS MORTY!? It's it's it's a way to reaffirm you groupthink in an online social echo chamber! Now hand me that screwdriver!posted by The Power Nap at 4:48 PM on March 9, 2014 [18 favorites]

The "Principal Vagina, no relation" line is crass, but it's also perfectly delivered. That man has lived with that name for so long that "no relation" is part of the name, and everyone else takes it completely in stride, because they already know him. It's like living near a restaurant that advertises fish tacos -- after a while it doesn't even register as a possible double entendre any more.

The same joke on Family Guy would have been hammered into the ground by Peter saying "W-w-wait your name is whaaaat?"posted by rifflesby at 5:01 PM on March 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

I've seen the first couple of episodes and it's very... Not sure what it is, but it's very something. I think I like it. The ending of Lawnmower Dog was actually quite sweet, which is amazing considering where the episode went.

"Where are my testicles, Summer. They were removed. Where have they gone?"

Well I wasted an entire evening watching these, so thanks Metafilter. Literally the only thing I was supposed to do tonight was buy a lamp, and I have failed.posted by selfnoise at 6:39 PM on March 9, 2014 [12 favorites]

I have been meaning to make this FPP for weeks and held off mostly because I couldn't believe someone else hadn't gotten to it first. Such a great show.posted by town of cats at 7:47 PM on March 9, 2014

I watched the first two episodes and quite enjoyed them but keep forgetting to go back and catch up on the rest because I am awful.posted by sparkletone at 7:48 PM on March 9, 2014

I'm kicking myself for not mentioning it before, but note that every episode has a post-credits sequence that adds a lot to the ending.

"Hey Jerry, don't worry about it. So what if the most meaningful day of your life was a simulation operating at minimum capacity?"

"Those guys are inside you building a piece of shit, Ethan! They're inside you building a monument to compromise!"

"Okay... whelp, sometimes science is more 'art' than 'science,' Morty. A lot of people don't get that."

"I thought the whole point of having a dog was to feel superior, Jerry. If I were you, I wouldn't pull that thread."

"Boy, Morty, I really Cronenberg'd the world up, didn't I? We got a whole planet of Cronenbergs walking around down there, Morty."

Seriously what the fuck is with the belching.

Ugh, same here. That's the one running gag that falls totally flat with me. And interestingly, one of the holdovers from the original, crude Doc & Mharti short, along with the splotchy pupils and the droopy lips expression.

Ah! I've been wondering what happened to the House of Cosbys guy. That show was amazing.

the droopy lips expression seems like a reference to the art in FLCL/fooly cooly. i tried in vain to find a screenshot, but that EXACT face drawn like that was in that show a bunch of times. Not saying it was an original concept even then, but that's like one of the best known animated shows of the past 20 years(especially among people who do animation, or are just fans of it) and it really seems like a homage. They use it in about the same way too.posted by emptythought at 9:15 PM on March 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

My girlfriend thought The Lego Movie was effed up, so naturally I had to show her the end of Rick Potion #9.

I'm still impressed with the way that two happy endings (for certain values of "happy") got tacked onto the end of such fathomless existential horror.posted by whuppy at 6:29 AM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Speaking of fathomless existential horror, R&M reminds me of MeFi's-own cstross. They both start with familiar tropes and then fearlessly keep going bigger and bigger.posted by whuppy at 6:36 AM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes, this is an amazing show! The jump to the other dimension, and the impact on Morty, was particularly delightful. "Gloss over it? Nope!"posted by Pronoiac at 3:48 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

yeah i really love this show. Its so clever. I Really wish it was a little cleanerposted by rebent at 8:52 PM on March 10, 2014

This episode only cemented my theory/joke that as of now, more then half the episodes are just parodies of what i'm pretty sure happened in stargate episode.posted by emptythought at 4:59 PM on March 11, 2014

Roiland's voice is so distinctive that I keep expecting Morty to shout ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON! when he gets worked up.posted by jason_steakums at 10:19 AM on March 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Desperate to fill the Futurama-shaped hole in your heart?

Nerdfight. Rick and Morty is infinitely funnier than Futurama. (De gustibus, etc.)posted by Going To Maine at 6:49 AM on March 13, 2014

Did a quick IMDB of Roiland. House of Cosbys, Rick And Morty and appeared in Yacht Rock. I would now like to subscribe to his newsletter.posted by vicx at 7:05 AM on March 13, 2014

Ehh. I'd argue they're not really trying to do the same thing. Futurama was humor you could watch with your 4 year old cousin and not expect anything too offensive to happen. It didn't even dig as deep as the simpsons did in the old days.

I'd say it's like comparing a burrito to a sandwich. There's a lot of similarities, but they're not the same thing. You'd never put rice on a sandwich, for instance.

Futurama was at times really funny for the limits it worked within. R&M a lot of times feels like it really doesn't have many limits at all. Futurama got unfunny because they ran out of ideas in my opinion, but R&M could potentially suffer from a completely different kind of disease that killed south park and other AS shows like aqua teen where they just start doing fucking ridiculous things that aren't even necessarily funny because they can, maaaan.

I think this show has a finite lifespan of being quality, and i just hope it dies a dignified death before it slams into the wall of it. it reaches for the hammer of crassness often, but generally does it in an intelligent wry way or immediately pokes fun at itself for going there. But other shows that did the same fell on their face in later seasons.

I think part of the longevity of futurama, which didn't necessarily end on a high note but didn't face plant either, was the fact that it never danced that close to the fire.posted by emptythought at 4:03 PM on March 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

The thing about Rick Potion #9 is that most shows would kill for a series finale that ends that powerfully, but for Rick & Morty it was just another episode.posted by jason_steakums at 5:23 PM on March 13, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm glad I didn't watch the NSFW "Doc and Mharti" short before starting in on the series, otherwise I would have avoided it as the short was too far into Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted territory for my liking, while the show can be fucked up, but balanced within the scope of the show as a whole.posted by filthy light thief at 11:28 AM on March 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like how it was like 25% soul-searching metaphysical heart-to-hearts, 75% drunken improvisation (dutifully animated by a crack team of professionals).

And 10% hamsters-in-butts. They really gave 110% on this one.posted by Rhaomi at 1:57 PM on March 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

Also, somebody on 4chan's /co/ collated the whole thing together.

hahahahahahahaha

I was wondering how long it would take someone to just make like a shell script and use curl to grab the entire thing at warp speed and then just drop it all into premiere or something.

I guess the answer was "like an hour".

Online streaming is the new analog hole. You can't post any content online without someone ripping it instantly anymore. The only differentiation officially released streaming can have is quality, and like 9/10 average people don't even notice or care, especially on a laptop screen.posted by emptythought at 4:21 PM on March 14, 2014

So… this weeks episode. I have to hand it to them. What other show is going to gut you emotionally, then end with a hamster-up-the-butt joke?posted by ob1quixote at 2:07 AM on March 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

the subreddit brought up a good point though, whats up with Beth getting sad in the photos of them being in the hampsterbutt dimension though?posted by emptythought at 2:46 AM on March 18, 2014

Maybe because she realized that her life, though not reaching the highs it had in that alternate "Real Human Doctor" world, it's still a pretty good life where she can actually visit alternate worlds with her family.

And as the newest episode is available on YouTube, any other upload is likely to disappear pretty quickly. You can probably find an illicit YT upload it for the brief time before the episode gets sweeped, but it's also hosted on other sites. I found one by searching for "Rixty Minutes."posted by filthy light thief at 2:38 PM on March 19, 2014

Also, the next one (in two weeks!) is supposed to be a doozy.posted by Rhaomi at 12:07 AM on March 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

i think i've nerded too hard in my life, because the noise it makes when rick scans the dumb-o-scope is the warning sound from star trek TNG that say, worf would yell out "they're charging weapons!" after.

i think that's one of my favorite-r things about this show though, they don't give a fuck about where they put their ace card. just like rick potion #9 being a random mid season episode, everything else just kinda comes as it is when they think of it.

It feels very improvised, stream of consciousness. Almost like a good standup routine on it's first couple shows or a freestyle or something.

Yea, they could make a whole season and shuffle episodes and jokes around but it shows like this and broad city that really feel fresh right now because everything just kinda flies out of the tube completely randomly.

And i think the same principal is at work here that made people talk about and like true detective in both R&M and broad city. It's just a couple people writing everything completely off the cuff, not a big team.

That really feels like the future of good television to me, barring stuff that's on a massive scale and budget like game of thrones.posted by emptythought at 3:40 PM on March 27, 2014

i think that's one of my favorite-r things about this show though, they don't give a fuck about where they put their ace card. just like rick potion #9 being a random mid season episode, everything else just kinda comes as it is when they think of it.

It feels very improvised, stream of consciousness. Almost like a good standup routine on it's first couple shows or a freestyle or something.

Yea, they could make a whole season and shuffle episodes and jokes around but it shows like this and broad city that really feel fresh right now because everything just kinda flies out of the tube completely randomly.

I want to beef with this a bit. Putting Rick Portion #9 mid-season and putting Butterbot at the beginning of the last episodes were both planned moves and different animals.

Rick Potion #9 opened up a thread that got used in Rixty Minutes to fundamentally change the relationship between Morty and Summer. (Although that change may never be specifically referenced again, in the same way that Community is full of small, dramatic moments that change relationships but then promptly disappear until such a time as the writers want to bring them back.) Yes, Rick Potion #9 could have been a season finale, but as it is the show has gotten some good mileage out of it.

Something Ricked This Way Comes, while my least favorite episode of the season, has A/B plots that both play with the same themes about the goodness and importance of science (Rick effectively overcoming magic with science, the Plutonian elites playing the role of climate-change deniers). Butterbot is the episode's single example of science going wrong. (Depending on how much credence we give to Summer's point that the devil is at least helping out with the community, while Rick just lazes around.) He's a largely pointless creation, and in talking to him Rick expresses some fundamental existential angst (surely a theme of the show - consider Morty's nihilism in Rixty Minutes), but subsequently goes on to deal with the actual Devil - something that should presumably suggest a natural, divine order of things and immediately eradicate most conflicts about the point of existence.

The issue with putting the Butterbot gag at the top of the show is that it's simply bad writing to throw away your best material early. You don't want to climax before the climax, and you want people to feel like they're getting rewarded for staying tuned. I suspect that they didn't realize how good Butterbot was relative to everything else; some things sound differently when being produced than when they air.

We can put the fact that the gag was at the beginning down to the show's just being willing to let everything fly out randomly, but Rick and Morty's episodes adhere to pretty standard TV structures: A/B plots, three acts, standard family, etc. While surreal, I can't think of Rick and Morty as being at the forefront of weirdness or random plot directions; Adult Swim and William Street have been mining that vein for years. (See Force, Aqua Teen Hunger.)

I'll agree that the show is quite fresh, and that small writing teams may indeed be the future of writing. But just because it's novel doesn't mean it's doing stuff that's out the ordinary - it's just been polished to a fine sheen. That last episode needed a little bit more working over.posted by Going To Maine at 7:26 PM on March 27, 2014

Holy shit. I just saw Rick Potion #9, and whoa...posted by Kevin Street at 1:09 PM on April 1, 2014

It looks like next week's episode will hook back into Rick Potion #9 as well. Quite a big story arc.posted by Going To Maine at 4:52 PM on April 1, 2014

So, I finally got around to catching up on this after having only watched the first two. Some thoughts:

1) Holy shit. Not that the pilot and second episode are bad, but they really hit a stride a couple more in.

2) Uncomfortable rape stuff is uncomfortable. That scene with the Jelly Bean toed up to and kinda stepped on the line between me continuing to watch and not without quite going over it, but blech. Would prefer they stayed away from that.

3) Obviously I recognized Justin Roiland in Morty mode because of the Lemongrab-y tone to his voice, and also as the Meeseeks, but his work as Rick is quite something. I've listened to Harmontown for a long, long time and it is positively uncanny how well he channels the kind of stuttering cadence Dan Harmon has a lot of the time. It doesn't sound much like Harmon's actual voice at all, but the speech patterns are so similar that I get this weird feeling of... I don't even know what word to use. Dissonance? Obviously it's intentional but it almost makes me wonder what the scripts look like. Does Roiland add the Harmon-esque stuttering himself? I assume he must. I've heard Harmon discussing the core dynamic of the show and his ability to flip between the two cadences (obviously without as much difference between the two voices) is similar, though Rick of course feels much more like his natural speech.

4) Oh, god, I want another Meeseeks episode. I have no idea what it would entail. But I want one.posted by sparkletone at 10:23 PM on April 1, 2014

"Meeseeks and Destroy" was my favorite TV episode so far this year, and this one blew it completely out of the water. The scope was so vast, the writing so effortless, the jokes (even the throwaways!) so absurdly perfect. It went to some extremely dark places, physically and emotionally, but had generous doses of dopey charm, too. The worldbuilding, the deconstruction, the hurricane of "Rick" puns, the mind-bending implications for the future... and it's not even the season finale (that's next week!).

I am so glad it's already set for a new season. This has been a treasure of a show.posted by Rhaomi at 12:37 AM on April 8, 2014

SORRY. STILL NOT OVER THE DOME. GOOD EPISODE THOUGH.posted by sparkletone at 12:51 AM on April 8, 2014

I feel like a harumphing bitter spoilsport cellar-dweller asshole saying this, but from that AV club article to describe what i'm talking about:

There are miniature examples of this kind of seeing-an-idea-through approach throughout the episode too; like the “pizza ordering a large person” joke which turns into “phones order a sofa” joke which turns into “upholstered chairs ordering a phone while talking into a slice of pizza joke.” It’s all part of a relentless determination to question every potential assumption, to never be satisfied with the first take on something. Sometimes, that means taking a premise (an alternate reality where pizza is people!) and riffing on that in a way that both expands the show’s possibilities and subtly mocks the concept of alternate realities in the first place.

Am i the only one for whom that entire joke-loop was way too family guy? because for me it was taking a one note joke and beating it to death, not taking it to it's ~wildest extreme~ or whatever.

I thought that was one of the weakest things the show has done in its entire run, honestly. I honestly expected a laugh track to kick in and it to be some kind of satire of stupid shows like that, because the living room they were ordering pizza from itself even almost looked like it was from a seth macfarlane show.posted by emptythought at 6:51 PM on April 8, 2014

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